Friday, 11 November 2011

Small things that bring great joy

It's been a bit of a nothing week this week. Plenty of bus and train journeys, and plenty of chillage in the bars and restaurants of Kathmandu. So I thought I would share one of my favourites pictures of the trip with you instead of a foto Friday 'what's been going on this week' update.

The topic of children has come up a lot recently. Once when Chris and I met the inspirational Garry Goddard, who set up his own children's charity in Nepal about 13 years ago helping to reunite displaced kids with their parents, and then again on a bus ride to the Indian border where I met an Australian woman who had been volunteering in an orphanage in the Kathmandu valley. The topic has also featured heavily in the books I've been reading ('Stones into Schools', and 'Half the Sky'). I have heard so many heart-breaking stories with children at the centre of them that it made me think, paradoxically, of a happy little chappy we encountered in a rural Tibetan village. I had been playing hide and seek with him and just managed to capture the perfect shot (I think!) of that moment with him, darting between the trucks and jeeps. His smile was so readily given and genuine, his giggle so infectious that it really did create a small moment that I will never forget. As ever, it's the small things that really make an impact in life.